A British Rifle Man: The Journals and Correspondence of Major George Simmons, Rifle Brigade during the Peninsular War and the Campaign of Waterloo

One of the best and most justly famous of the many memoirs of a serving British soldier during the Napoleonic Wars. Born in Beverley in east Yorkshire, George Simmons began his military life in 1805 as Assistant Surgeon in the LIncoln Militia. He subsequently joined the 95th Rifles in order to help pay for his younger brothers’ education. Simmons served throughout the thick of the Peninsular War under Wellington, doing his duty as a Rifleman in six campaigns up to 1814, and seeing action at the sieges of Ciudad Roderigo and Badajoz and the battles of Salamanca, Vittoria, and finally of Waterloo. He was thrice severely wounded, but survived to write these memoirs, which were basaed on the letters he sent home to his impecunious but doting parents.

George Simmons (1785-1858) served in the famous 95th Rifles in Wellington's army during the Peninsular War and Waterloo Campaign. First published in 1899, these vivid writings provide an engaging description of life on campaign in Portugal, Spain, France and the Low Countries at the beginning of the nineteenth century.